World Series and Bears/Panthers thoughts

I guess it's fitting that a baseball season that included the Orioles and A's making the playoffs ended with what I would have considered the least likely World Series outcome — the Giants sweeping the Tigers.

That San Francisco could beat what I felt was a superior Detroit team in a short series isn't surprising at all in itself. Strange things happen in small samples. It certainly doesn't compare to the Orioles and A's surviving arguably baseball's two best divisions over a 162-game sample and making the postseason.

What I can't believe is that the Tigers went so feebly ... or maybe I should say that the Giants were so dominant. Yesterday's 4-3, 10-inning clincher, with the Giants throwing Matt Cain, is the only game that went the way it was "supposed" to go. Barry Zito certainly wasn't "supposed" to pitch circles around Justin Verlander in Game 1. The Tigers weren't "supposed" to produce a grand total of zero runs against a previously struggling Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong in Games 2 and 3.

But a lot happened this season that wasn't "supposed" to happen. It's enough to make me have second thoughts about whether teams should really be willing to punt away entire seasons, the way the Cubs, with my full and enthusiastic approval, did.

------

So what if the Bears played like garbage yesterday? They won! The outrage after a last-second Robbie Gould field goal was needed to beat a bad Panthers team 23-22 is silly. They hadn't played a bad defensive game — or, really, even a mediocre defensive game — yet. They had the offensive disaster at Green Bay, but yesterday wasn't a disaster for the offense, not after the way Jay Cutler and company played in the fourth quarter.

It was a bad game. Bad games happen. Sometimes they result in you getting blown out by a good opponent or in you losing to a lesser one. Yesterday resulted in neither. I wish the offense would get its act together and produce at the level I thought it would entering the season, and the first three quarters certainly weren't encouraging, but that's kinda grasping at straws with a 6-1 team.

Comments

More News

Comments

About the Author

Follow this blog:

Get updates from this blog when they happen by following it on Twitter or using its RSS feed.